EVENTS

Occupy Vancouver – a correction

Last week I said that Occupy Vancouver was happening tomorrow (the 14th). Whether it was changed or if I just can’t work a calendar, it’s happening on SATURDAY (the 15th) at the art gallery. I will definitely be there, and now I don’t have to use up a vacation day. Win/win!

Occupy Vancouver, our homegrown Occupy Wall Street spinoff, is set to launch Oct. 15 at the Vancouver Art Gallery and continue indefinitely. And while British Columbians don’t have a Goldman Sachs to demonize, in B.C. we have a provincial government that has been doing an incredibly effective job funnelling money to the rich. The wealthiest one per cent of B.C. households raked in an average income of $820,000 in 2010, up from $602,000 in 2000, according to a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) report. That 36-percent increase is double the rate of inflation during that period.

The CCPA studied personal provincial taxes — income, sales, carbon, property and Medical Services Plan (MSP) premiums — as a share of household income. In 2000, the tax rate was fairly consistent across income groups, with the top 10 per cent of households paying slightly more. But after tax cuts by the provincial government, by 2010 the richest 20 per cent of households were actually paying a lower tax rate than the other 80 per cent.

This isn’t about a single bank or a single political party or a single bad mistake – this is about a culture of privilege in a society that claims to be democratic, where a small number of people control the vast majority of political power to ensure they stay right where they are. This is about participating in the system that is supposed to represent us, but has been doing so less and less as the years have passed.

This is great. The protests are coming to Ottawa and I will be there for sure. Democracy, not plutocracy!

The government is so deeply corrupted we need to move to a sort of backup system, this direct democracy, to really push back against the corruption. We can make deep gouges and push it back far enough it will take decades to come back, if ever.

Major transparency measures, better public broadcasting that is more corruption resistant, campaign reform to ensure 99%ers actually have a level playing field to run for office, legal reforms, lots of things that I think we will be able to agree need to be done.

I was there yesterday and while it was good overall, the 9/11 Truthers were out in force, and apparently today there was some raw milk woo brought up. If only we could get a science committee going down there so we can filter out the woo…